


Winter Song

by lalazee



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Canon Compliant, Comfort, Ereri Secret Santa, First Kiss, Fluff, Healing, Love Confessions, M/M, Manga Spoilers, Post-Canon, Romance, Winter
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-24
Updated: 2017-12-24
Packaged: 2019-02-19 16:25:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,501
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13127418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalazee/pseuds/lalazee
Summary: Eren has a home, but he does not go there, because he sleeps in Levi’s bed like a stray that has learned the word ‘home’ for the first time.





	Winter Song

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ponderosa16](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ponderosa16/gifts).



The first snow after Eren’s return is deep. White on white on blue skies and blinding sun, a light that erases all the blood that Levi knows stains the ground beneath their boots. But even he can forget, even he can allow his memories to blanket beneath the snowfall to feel clean and new, to stand beneath the midday sun at its zenith so he casts no shadow, no darkness across his face or thoughts.

The first snow after Eren’s return is deep, and Eren sleeps right through it. He sleeps all the time. He heals. Physically.

He deserves that much.

Eren has a home, but he does not go there. Levi wonders how Eren can feel empty in a house with his own siblings, his soulmates, his Armin and Mikasa. They have always been his limbs more than the one he has since grown back.

Eren has a home, but he does not go there, because he sleeps in Levi’s bed like a stray that has learned the word ‘home’ for the first time. At first he sleeps in Levi’s extra bedroom, tossing and turning like his maneuver gear still flings him through trees and toward monsters’ gaping mouths. His hair across the pillow like a riot of chestnut and mahogany tangled woods. Soft mouth in a frown that Levi wants to touch and change more than he even wants to breathe.

And when Eren is not sleeping, he’s at Levi’s side. Levi doesn’t know why, and beats himself down for allowing himself to wonder. They play chess and don’t speak. They drink tea in tandem, Eren’s cup full of globs of honey dripping from a dainty spoon. They read the paper like an old couple – Levi sitting in his chair and Eren dropping an arm atop his shoulder to lean in, eyes like green oceans lapping at the articles like he’s never seen written word in his life.

They don’t talk about what happened, because neither of them need to. Levi doesn’t know how to bring it up, anyway. And those smiles are so few.

But when Eren _smiles_.

_Oh_.

Levi learns the sound of Eren’s bare feet padding across wooden floors when the morning is still a deep purple bruise on the horizon, casting blue shadows through the house. He learns that Eren can’t cook to save his life, which he has to smirk over, because Eren saves lives like he was born to do it, but he can’t fry an egg. He learns that Eren’s toes are always cold and he sneaks them beneath Levi’s thighs on the couch in front of the fire as if somehow Levi isn’t going to notice.

He notices.

He notices the strong, clean lines of Eren’s jaw, and the way Eren’s hands deftly write letters to his friends because he is not yet ready to leave this house and put on a smile for anyone but Levi. He notices that he doesn’t mind being the only one for which Eren smiles.

Maybe that makes him a bad person, but Levi is used to carrying that knowledge. When it comes to Eren, he simply does not care.

When Levi walks in from midday errands to find Eren curled in his bed like a cat bathing in light, his heart moves in a way in which he does not recognize or know the footwork. He feels old and clumsy, youthful and full of hope all at once. He _feels_ so much. This is a dance with which he is unfamiliar, but if Eren will be his partner, he realizes he is content to trip over his feet as many times as necessary to keep up.

The same evening, Levi heads to sleep in the second bedroom. Unnaturally hot fingers curl around his wrist, a delicate touch so unlike the brazen Eren Jaeger everyone else knows. Their eyes meet in the candlelit corridor and Levi waits, wondering.   
  
“Can you stay with me?” Eren says in a voice that has long become a man’s. And his eyes may be shadowed, but they’re still his and Levi still wants to drown in them. “At night?”

They fall asleep at opposite sides of the bed. They wake up tangled, Eren’s long, thick hair tickling Levi’s nose. They fall asleep and wake up like this every day, every night. Neither of them mentions it. Levi doesn’t know how to bring _that_ up, either.

The second snow after Eren’s return comes three weeks after the first.  An unending snow globe of thick, heavy flakes that fall flat on children’s tongues like confectionary. A snow that continues for days, climbing up toward ground floor windows and entryway door knobs. The kind of snow that insulates the house and leaves Levi feeling like he and Eren are the only humans left in this town.

The first snow after Eren’s return comes three weeks after the first, and he wakes up. Emerges from the bedroom with eyes bright, peering around the living area like he’s seeing it for the first time. He walks past Levi, the fireplace, straight as the crow flies, forehead pressed up against the window with an innocence and excitement that makes Levi’s heart hurt because the muscle in his chest hasn’t exercised its ability to love this deep in a long, long time.

“Wow,” Eren says, breathless, hands splayed across the glass. The smile he beams over his shoulder is brighter than that first new snow of the year, leaves Levi warm and bare from the inside out. “It’s snowing!”

“Yup,” Levi says, because his mouth has forgotten how to function around that smile like he’d been able to when Eren had been younger, unreachable.

“Come out with me.”

“What, now?”

“Now.”

They do. Of course they do.  
  
Levi isn’t a fan of the cold like Eren has always seemed to be. One of them is bundled and one of them is not. The snowflakes melt in Eren’s hair like he’s as hot as the sun, and Levi knows from sharing a bed with him that he is.

He _is_ the sun.

And he is finally shining again.

No one has passed through the streets and everything is clean, soft snowbanks and muted signs of life. Eren is the center of it all and he’s looking to the sky, snow freckling his thick lashes and unbidden smile. Levi’s heart stops and restarts when Eren simply lets himself fall back into the thick cushion like a star, looking to the heavens like he already knows all the good things waiting for everyone up there.

Levi does not put much stock into that. Not when heaven is right here on earth.

Gloved hands firmly nested in his pockets, Levi approaches, snow up past he knees until his booted feet planted on either side of Eren’s head. He looks down, only to find Eren smiling up at him with rosy cheeks.

“You’re gonna get a cold,” Levi says, lips faintly quirked. “Sneeze on me and you’ll pay the price.”

“I wouldn’t _dare_ ,” Eren says with a laugh lighter than the swirling, weightless snowfall. “Come down here and get a cold with me. Then it won’t matter who’s sick and who’s not.”

“You’re obnoxious,” Levi says, and it’s not true. It’s not true at all. “Who would take care of us _then_?”

“We’d take care of each other,” Eren says, his summer gaze flicking away, his face flushing a deeper shade of pink. “I’d take care of you.”

Levi drops to a squat, peering at upside down Eren with a heavy-lidded look. He sighs, wondering how Eren can pull things from him in a way that makes him feel like he’s simply _giving_ himself away.

“I know you would. Come on, let’s get inside.”

“I could stay like this forever.”

Levi’s soft huff of a laugh his silent, the foggy plume of breath clouding his vision the only sign of it.

“As cozy as you look right now, I’d rather you not.”

When Levi holds out a hand, Eren doesn’t hesitate to take it. Maybe Levi’s hand feels like home in the same way Eren’s does for him. Maybe not. Levi can’t read the new, older Eren as well as he could the young one.

The house smells of pine and warm, coddling woodsmoke. Tea cools on the small table beside the chair on which Eren sits, the aroma of bergamot and orange lilting through the air. The fire crackles and snaps, the only thing here speaking out loud as Levi towel-dries Eren’s hair and begins to delicately brush it back into his hand.

“Haircut?” Levi says.

“Maybe,” Eren says, sounding drowsy as Levi’s fingers thread through the lush lengths. “What do you like better?

“What does it matter what _I_ like?”

“It just does.”

Levi does not know how to reply to that, so he doesn’t. He twists Eren’s hair into a bun atop his head, ties it off with taut leather. Stray strands are already framing Eren’s high cheekbones, an artful disarray that is entirely unintentional and entirely Eren.

They eat rabbit stew around the fire as the dark envelopes the world with early winter slumber. Later, Levi wraps himself in a thick, crocheted blanket of deep green and grey, and Eren simply sits beside him, face glowing in the firelight as he sips his tea and looks into the flame as it licks sunset colors across his features.

“Thank you,” Eren says, hushed like prayer.

Levi’s brow furrows, gaze flits over to land on Eren’s strong profile.

“I don’t need that.”

“You don’t even know what I’m thanking you for, yet.”

“I know you well enough.”

“Maybe. Maybe not.”

“Mysterious doesn’t work on you.”

Eren snorts a laugh and leans back against the couch, his slim, scarred hands curled around the steaming mug upon his lap. He rolls his head to the side, grins at Levi.

“Thank you for keeping me.”

“You’re not mine,” Levi says, regretting the crack in his voice. “I’m just doing my job.”

Eren’s mouth goes sober, his expression watchful, wiser than it ever was from back in the days of crumbling castle ruins and half-transformed titans and deep, dark woods filled with secrets.

“I’m not your responsibility anymore, y’know.”

Levi knows. How can he act like he doesn’t know? Eren’s not stupid. He’s still blade-sharp.

“You deserve it.”

“Why?”

“Because –“ Levi’s eyebrows crunch together, his ribcage constricting his chest. “Because of what you’ve been through. For all of us. Obviously.”

“Is that it?” Eren says, eyes filled with firelight skimming and searching Levi’s face.

Levi can’t breathe for that heat, that spark directed towards him. His skin burns with it.

“What’re you lookin’ for, Jaeger?”

Another pause, another thick silence filled with the scent of orange and ash and Eren’s distinctive musk. Eren’s attention drops to Levi’s lips, then back up.

“Are you scared of what I want to say?”

“I don’t know what you wanna say, and I’m not scared of anything.”

More lies. Levi is scared. He’s scared he will wake up and find Eren gone back to the second bedroom. He’s scared he won’t hear that bawdy laugh as he reads the newspaper, won’t smell the earth and the ocean in Eren’s hair anymore, feel the way Eren puts his hand on Levi’s shoulder to balance himself as he reaches past him for something.

Levi is scared that his house will feel empty and dark after this immeasurable radiance has burst from every corner of these rooms.

“Well,” Eren says, sucking a breath, holding it, watchful. Exhaling. “ _I’m_ scared.”

“Of?”

“Of what you’ll say when I tell you that I think I’ve loved you forever.”

The floor falls from beneath Levi’s feet and he hasn’t got a leg to stand on. Flailing, unsure, the only thing he doesn’t know how to maneuver in this lifetime.

“I –“ Levi clamps his mouth shut, his hands fisted upon his lap, beneath the cover of the blanket that cloaks his shoulders. His eyes are fierce, narrowed, raking across Eren’s open, honest face for the lie, the deceit. Of course there’s none. When has that _ever_ been Eren?

“Levi.” Eren says his name like the letters form something precious, like a treasure found on a long journey, like an x that marks the spot.

Levi doesn’t know what to say, how to traverse this terrain. His mouth stays stubbornly shut, despite everything that wants to pour out, the months of watching Eren move from one bed to the other, from hiding behind his hair to pulling it back, from sober to smiles. There’s so much in him, and so few ways for him to spit it out.

“Levi.” Eren pulls his bottom lip between his teeth, his hands still cupping the tea on his lap, a long flyaway strange of hair catching on his eyelashes as he blinks. “I’m gonna kiss you now, so –“

Levi cups the nape of Eren’s neck, pulls him in, and captures his mouth. Leans into the kiss when Eren hums his contentment against Levi’s lips, and let’s go.

Everything falls away. The walls and the wood, the hearth and the house, the snow and the far distant seascape. The pain of the past, the pressure to heal in the present.

Everything falls away and there’s only –

_Home_.

The welcome slide of Eren’s tongue between Levi’s lips, the tentative taste and sample and savor. The learning of curves and teeth the jagged points of Eren’s canines. The way Eren sighs into Levi like he does something for him, something important.

And then the kiss ends, their first kiss, and the house returns, still enveloped in snow, still hugging them close and safe. Eren’s nose brushes against Levi’s, his long lashes fluttering faintly against Levi’s skin, a butterfly’s kiss in itself. A warm brow drops to Levi’s, rests.

Levi allows his eyes to stay shut, because he knows when it comes to Eren – when it comes to Eren, he feels and knows true fear. Eren has not just taught him love.

“Me too,” Levi says softly, his voice more wrecked than it should be.

“You too, what?” Eren sounds like he’s forgotten how words work. Like he thinks they can just speak through the spots where their skin touches.

“Love you.”

Eren’s strong shoulders seem to deflate with his long, shaky exhale. Tension melting away. His laugh is short, wavering.

“That’s – _hah_ – that’s good. That’s really – yeah.”

“Eren.”

“Yeah?”  
  
“When are you gonna put that cup down?”

Eren laughs, stronger this time, pulling back to set his cold tea aside. When he turns back, his face his brighter than the fireside. Calloused palms reach out, hold Levi’s face in place as Eren leans in, still smiling.

“Levi.”

“What.”

“I’m gonna keep you forever, now. You know that, right?”

Levi’s lips twitch, his eyes finding Eren’s, holding tight.

“I guess I can live with that.”

The second snow after Eren’s return comes three weeks after the first, the wind having finally blown him home.


End file.
